Richard and Cynthia Murphy

Pictures that have emerged of the Murphys, who lived in New Jersey, appeared to confirm what was already known: the alleged Russian sleeper agents had fully embraced the US suburban lifestyle. They babysat for their neighbours in both towns, went hiking in nearby state parks and ice-skating with their children and friends. Pictures of the smiling couple seem to show a domesticated, middle-aged pair happily at home in their suburban surroundings, posing with their two daughters or wearing an apron in the kitchen. Yet it has also emerged that Cynthia Murphy had some form of access to Alan Patricof, a friend of Hillary Clinton and a well known fundraiser for Democratic party causes. Patricof was a finance chairman for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. He said Murphy had never tried to get any unusual or sensitive information out of him. "[We] never discussed anything but paying bills and taxes in phone calls or meetings ... she never once asked me about government, politics or anything remotely close to that subject," he told the Washington Post.

Vicky Peláez and Juan Lazaro

Peláez who lives in Yonkers, has been in the public spotlight as a journalist for more than 30 years. She began her career as a TV reporter in her native Peru working for Frecuencia Latina, an evening news show on the country's Channel 2. She was known for aggressive street reporting and live stand-ups. In 1984 she and a cameraman were kidnapped by a leftist guerrilla group and held until their TV channel broadcast a rebel message. She moved to New York where she got a job at El Diario, New York's Spanish-language newspaper. She then married Lazaro, a political science professor allegedly from Uruguay. FBI surveillance tapes have caught him referring to a childhood lived at least in part in the Soviet Union. At one stage he is quoted by surveillance experts as saying "we moved to Siberia ... as soon as the war started." Pelaez's son, architect Waldo Mariscal, has denied that his parents were spies.

Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley

One of the alleged Russian spies arrested in Boston stole the identity of Donald Heathfield, a Canadian who died at just a few months old. The reborn Heathfield attended Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where his class included the man who is now president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón. Heathfield passed himself off as the son of a Canadian diplomat and, strikingly, stayed closely in touch with his old classmates, even travelling across the globe to visit them. Some of those classmates went on to run big corporations. Heathfield started a company called Future Map. His acquaintances were not sure what it did but it seems to have provided useful cover for asking questions and travelling.

His wife – who went by the name Tracey Foley – was a travel agent who said she was from Montreal and had been educated in Europe. It was in part how she explained her accent.

Foley also had a personal website on which she described herself as a Montreal native who had lived and gone to school in Switzerland, Canada and France.

Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills

They were arrested in Virginia but appear to have spent most of their time in Seattle. There she is remembered as the more assertive of the two and he as "henpecked" and grumpy, according to the Seattle Times. The FBI says the pair, who have two small children, were sending and receiving coded messages to and from Moscow from their Seattle flat. But the FBI is not saying, if it knows, what was in those secret messages. Zottoli claimed to have been born in New York, but had only been in the US nine years. Mills arrived two years later and claimed to be Canadian despite a thick accent that neighbours mistakenly thought was Yugoslav. Zottoli worked as a car salesmen before moving into teleconferencing. He was known for his strong criticisms of George W Bush and the US.